This past month, I (Selena Middleton, Stelliform Publisher and EIC) read Stephen Graham Jones’s The Only Good Indians alongside my friend and invaluable Stelliform helper and fellow English PhD, Kristen Shaw. Since our conversations often fall into fairly nerdy literary analysis, we thought we would share our thoughts about The Only Good Indians in the form of the conversation that we might have had if the pandemic had not prevented an in-person meeting. What follows is our conversation-review of SGJ’s novel, which was published by Saga Press in July 2020.
It’s important to carve out these spaces where the reader can sit for a moment — within a bigger problem always, but for a moment focusing on a small world that the fantastic creates for us. The feelings around climate change are big and oppressive and overwhelming and I’m not entirely interested in recreating that experience in Stelliform books. The world is doing that for us already. Instead, I’ve been delighted to read stories that shape a smaller but still inter-connected experience. Read more about that in this post.
We’re delighted to welcome Cynthia Zhang to the Stelliform family with a debut novel. She comes to us with previous fiction and non-fiction published in Lunch Ticket, Leading Edge, Orca Literary, and Coffin Bell. Read more about After the Dragons in this blog post.
Kathleen Jennings’ Flyaway is an Australian gothic novella that scales up the haunted house trope to encompass a landscape. In this review, I’ll focus on some of the book’s ecological themes which are largely presented to the reader in the form of fairy tales.
Both our forthcoming 2020 titles, Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern and Night Roll by Michael J. Deluca have received Publishers Weekly reviews. Read the reviews here.
Editors Zelda Knight and Ekpeki Oghenechovwe Donald are bringing speculative fiction by writers from Africa and the African diaspora to a wider audience. For readers who are interested in the broad spectrum of speculative fiction, this anthology offers science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, horror, and myth — sometimes within the same story.
Both of our fall titles are now available to download for review purposes from NetGalley. Signing up for NetGalley is free. Users receive a DRM-protected ebook and the opportunity to post their reviews on the NetGalley site. Reviewers can also post their reviews to Goodreads, Amazon, or their own blogs or other social media. We appreciate every review!
This post discussing some of the considerations in developing a House Style for Stelliform may be a bit nerdy for some. But in the context of current conversations about appropriate terminology and style for inclusiveness and equity, I thought it important to make process and position more transparent. Opening up discussions of how we approach the world around us necessarily includes the people around us. We can never be perfect in our approaches, but we can commit to being informed, to continuing our learning, and to valuing the lives and experiences of our authors and readers through what we publish.
For Pride Month 2020, we’re featuring a story by E. I. Richardson, a queer Black and Malay writer. “A Good Mother” is a powerful, subtly unnerving horror story about family relations, abuse, and the day to day tasks of living with and working through trauma.
Last month we were delighted to give away 5 printed ARC copies of Sim Kern’s DEPART, DEPART! (now available for preorder) and we’re excited to do it again for Michael J. DeLuca’s NIGHT ROLL, coming in October. Check out DeLuca’s Twitter thread and blog post for how to enter the contest.